Deck 11: Children and the Criminal Process

Question 1

In the early 1900's, when it came to being witnesses, children were seen as

A) highly credible and reliable witnesses.
B) Very suggestible and, therefore, not reliable and credible witnesses.
C) No better or no worse than adult witnesses, and therefore, use freely in court.
D) Using a child as a witness never crossed anyone's mind, and, therefore, was not an issue.

Answer 1

Very suggestible and, therefore, not reliable and credible witnesses.

Question 2

Varendock's important research approach to the study of children's memory/suggestibility consisted of

A) presenting lists of ordered words/numbers and asking child to repeat them from memory, meanwhile the presenter uses various facial expressions/suggestibility during this process.
B) used staged/live events to measure suggestibility and memory
C) showing the children pictures or objects and using questions with increasing degrees of suggestion about the object

Answer 2

used staged/live events to measure suggestibility and memory

Question 3

In child abuse cases, most children

A) are not exposed to the courtroom as witnesses
B) Do not go to trial because most cases are plea bargained
C) Are always exposed to the courtroom as witnesses
D) Only A and B

Answer 3

Only A and B

Question 4

A witness is considered competent to testify if he or she

A) Can observe the events about which he or she is to testify
B) Has a sufficiently good memory to recall events and can express him or herself reasonably and intelligently
C) both A and B.
D) none of these.

Question 5

Results of tests assessing memory and suggestibility indicate that

A) children report less of what happened than adults, but are not necessarily more inaccurate
B) Children report more than adults, and are just as accurate as adults
C) Children report less than adults and are more inaccurate
D) No substantial data can be drawn from these studies

Question 6

In reference to the study of children's recall of medical procedures

A) children were more likely to say "yes" to something that didn't happen, as opposed to "no" to something that did
B) children were more likely to "no" to something that did happen, as opposed to "yes" to something that didn't
C) Children were just as likely to answer either way
D) children made up outlandish stories about their doctors in order to get attention from parents and other adults

Question 7

In the case of Commonwealth vs. Cheryl Amirault LeFave, a Massachusetts judge overturned LeFave's conviction because

A) the children who testified in the case later admitted to authorities that they were lying.
B) prosecutors gave false testimony in a court of law, which caused all evidence to be discarded.
C) he heard the testimony of one psychologist who stated that recent research casts doubt on the veracity of children's testimonies under the conditions described in the trial.
D) none of these are reasons that the conviction was overturned.

Question 8

According to Judge Borenstein in the case of Cheryl LaFave, children will more readily be influenced by suggestion/leading questions when

A) Being interviewed by a high status individual, like a police officer
B) When in the presence of the alleged abuser
C) Among other children
D) Under any circumstance

Question 9

According to the amicus brief submitted by the APA, when under conditions of heightened emotional arousal, children's testimonies

A) Are more likely to be less accurate and less complete
B) Are more likely to be more accurate and more complete
C) Are not affected either way
D) The APA never submitted an amicus brief on this topic.

Question 10

Critics of the APA's amicus brief and the use of closed circuit television for children's testimonies feel that

A) Using closed circuit television because of a child's fear of testifying assumes the defendant's guilt
B) Children will not give accurate testimonies over closed circuit television.
C) The use of close circuit television. violates the confrontation rights of the defendant.
D) Closed circuit television has the potential to cause invasion of privacy if computer hackers got a hold of it and proceeded to display it on the internet

Question 11

As an alternative to closed circuit television, advocates came up with ways of preparing children for testimony. All of these are tactics except

A) the child's lawyer taking him or her to the courtroom before the trial in order to become acquainted with the surroundings
B) the advocate will discuss the child's testimony with the child
C) the advocate will allow the child to play with dolls in the courtroom.
D) all of the above.

Question 12

According to this chapter, there are sex differences in the way male and female jurors view sex crimes against children. An example may be

A) Females are more likely to attribute responsibility to the child victim
B) Males are more likely to believe that the victim suffered than females
C) Females are more likely to believe alleged victims than men
D) All of the above

Question 13

Is closed circuit television fair for the defendant? Does it imply the defendant's guilt? what are other implications? Support your answers from the readings.

Question 14

What are the requirements for a competent witness? In which of these requirements are children likely to have the most difficulty? Support your answer with research findings.

Question 15

What legal problems exist for closing courtrooms to reduce stress for child witnesses?

Question 16

What legal problems exist with testimony by child witnesses behind a screen?

Question 17

What evidence is there that testimony in court by child victims is stressful for the child and has effects lasting beyond the period of testimony?

Question 18

What is the relationship between child age and credibility of child witnesses as judged by mock jurors?

Question 19

In sex crimes against children what research evidence is there to suggest that male and female jurors view child witnesses differently? View defendants differently?

Question 20

The scientific study of the child as a witness began

A) in the early 1900's with the development of psychology as an empirically based science
B) only recently with the modern development of psychological science
C) the early psychologists were concerned with problems only of secondary interest to modern psychologists
D) when members of the legal community welcomed the picture tests used to test children's memory as ecologically valid for legal issues

Question 21

In criminal cases, the child victim's testimony

A) is usually not admitted because children below the age of majority are incompetent to testify
B) is usually admitted even at a young age if the child is deemed competent to testify after questioning in court
C) is not subject to cross examination because the courts want to protect children from stress
D) is to be disallowed because studies show that children at a relatively young age cannot identify lies

Question 22

Based on studies of children's memory, testimony by child witnesses

A) may be wholly true
B) may be partially false
C) may be wholly false
D) all of the above

Question 23

In many research studies of children's memory, the experimenter may be interested in children's susceptibility to

A) leading questions by other children
B) repeated questioning when they get bored
C) source monitoring errors
D) decreasing ecological validity by reducing objectivity

Question 24

Research workers studying children's memory in the laboratory for legal purposes

A) are constrained by ethical considerations in the kind of materials or the kind of stress they can use in a study
B) are not constrained by ethical considerations because they must have ecologically valid studies in order for the research to be admitted in court
C) can ethically testify that children are not suggestible, and that false memories are almost never induced
D) report that the legal context reduces stress or embarrassment for children who testify

Question 25

Research workers studying children's memory try to improve

A) source monitoring by exposing children to artificial stresses in the laboratory
B) ecological validity by studying children after the children have been exposed to naturally occurring stressful or embarrassing situations
C) the researcher's ability to detect errors of commission, but not errors of omission
D) the studies so that the researchers will always be able to induce "fuzzy traces" to improve the accuracy of memory

Question 26

Researchers agree that

A) a false statement by a child who testifies can always be detected by jurors
B) a child's assertion that he or she has been sexually abused is more likely to be false than true, but that knowledge doesn't help in a specific case
C) a child's assertion that he or she has been sexually abused is more likely to be true than false, but that knowledge doesn't help in a specific case
D) a true statement by a child who testifies will be believed by jurors just because it is a child making the statement

Question 27

In actual cases of alleged child sex abuse, interviewer bias

A) is not a problem because the interviewers are professionally trained
B) is demonstrated because child protection workers usually make only one visit to a home when sexual abuse is alleged
C) is prevalent in the Child Advocacy Centers that have been developed to ensure prosecution in most cases of alleged sexual abuse
D) is a potential problem when child protection workers, police or prosecutors are zealous about pursuing a case

Question 28

The atmosphere of the criminal courtroom

A) can be intimidating for children and may make some children upset and anxious, possibly interfering with their testimony
B) is accommodating for children and they are not subject to rigorous cross examination
C) is fixed by law and no variation is possible constitutionally to accommodate children
D) is not helpful for children when the judge closes the courtroom to spectators

Question 29

The stress of the criminal courtroom for children may be

A) intensified if the judge allows hearsay testimony to be admitted
B) diminished and testimony improved if the child is examined by a supportive person, or the child sees a supportive person present in the court room
C) diminished if the child victim comes face to face with the alleged perpetrator of the abuse in the court room
D) intensified if the judge routinely closed the court room to spectators in keeping with the provisions of the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights

Question 30

States have been experimenting with methods to protect child witnesses by minimizing contact with the alleged abuser in the court room. The U.S. Supreme Court has

A) allowed the routine use of a simple screen in the court room between the child and the alleged abuser when the child testifies
B) allowed the prosecution to remove the alleged abuser from the court room while a child testifies
C) allowed the use of closed circuit video, and acknowledged research on the possible psychologically traumatic effects for some children that would interfere with their testimony
D) disallowed the use of closed circuit video in the court room based on research showing that closed circuit video is prejudicial to the defendant

Question 31

The American Psychological Association amicus brief submitted in Maryland v. Craig was

A) cited in the body of the opinion, helping to define the meaning of the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause
B) controversial within the psychological profession because some said the research was not strong enough to warrant a recommendation that a constitutional right be curtailed
C) a) but not b)
D) both a) and b)

Question 32

Witness demeanor

A) refers to observations of body language and emotional appearance while testifying from which many people believe they can detect lying
B) is an infallible means of detecting truthful testimony and is lost in video testimony
C) research shows that experts can detect lying and inaccurate testimony but lay jurors cannot
D) refers to observations and behavior which indicate that the legal process attacks witness self esteem

Question 33

Child advocates in prosecutors offices work with children who will be witnesses

A) to make sure their testimony is legally correct
B) to help the child to feel more comfortable in the court room, but will not coach children's testimony
C) to help the child build rapport with the defense attorney
D) child advocates in the courtroom have been found unconstitutional because the practice violates the confrontation clause

Question 34

The credibility of child witnesses to adults

A) is not important because in practice children are rarely used as witnesses
B) is important because jurors overemphasize children's testimony as true
C) is important because the child is usually interviewed by several adults and the case will not go forward if the child is not credible to the adults
D) is not important because jurors will not convict a defendant in the absence of a great deal of other evidence of guilt

Question 35

In an experimental sex abuse trial, mock jurors

A) a 5 year old victim witness was the most credible to jurors because of the child's advanced knowledge of sexual activity
B) a 13 year old victim-witness was most credible to jurors because she was sexually naive
C) a 9 year old victim-witness was least credible to jurors because she was sexually knowledgeable
D) a 13 year old victim-witness was least credible to jurors because the jurors may have attributed responsibility for the sexual acts to the adolescent victim-witness

Question 36

Male and female jurors view sex crimes against children

A) differently with females believing the alleged child victims more than males
B) similarly with both finding the child victim suffered to the same degree
C) differently with females more likely to attribute responsibility to the child victim than males
D) similarly when they rate credibility of defendants who deny they were guilty of molesting a child victim-witness

Question 37

Expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases

A) is routinely denied admission by judges on Daubert grounds
B) is usually accepted if it is social framework testimony about child abuse and child sexual abuse
C) is usually accepted if it is about the child abuse accommodation syndrome because of the strong scientific research behind it
D) is routinely accepted if the expert's credentials as an expert are strong

Question 38

Once expert testimony is admitted in a trial, a judge sitting in a bench trial

A) will weigh only the scientific accuracy of the testimony
B) will be most influenced by the expert's credentials
C) will be strongly influenced positively or negatively by the expert's manner of testifying
D) will be more influenced by testimony by a male expert than an equally qualified female expert

Question 39

According to the text, in the future, because of Daubert considerations, experts who are called to testify in child abuse trials

A) can have minimal scientific training and will not have to know the scientific literature
B) will not have to be concerned about the underlying science because judges and lawyers know very little about science
C) will have to know the scientific literature because of the validity of the child abuse accommodation syndrome
D) will have to have a deep appreciation of the scientific base for their testimony